Author | Samantha Leigh Allen |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | Nonfiction |
Published | 2019 |
Publisher | Little, Brown |
Publication place | United States |
ISBN | 978-0-316-51603-7 Hardcover |
Real Queer America: LGBT Stories From Red States is a 2019 nonfiction book written by Samantha Allen. [1] [2] [3] The book documents a road trip Allen took in the summer of 2017 through LGBT communities in conservative parts of the United States, focusing on Utah, Texas, Indiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Georgia.
The New York Times wrote "Allen’s powerful book of memoir and reportage, Real Queer America, is decidedly more serious in tone, but it's no less entertaining. The Daily Beast reporter gathers stories from L.G.B.T.Q. people she met in conservative states across the country on a road trip she took in July 2017, the first summer of the Trump presidency." [1]
The Los Angeles Times called Real Queer America “a book necessary for anyone in or allied with the queer community.” [4]
Publishers Weekly labeled the book “the ultimate road-trip through rainbow-colored America.” [5] The book was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Non-fiction.
The LGBTQ community is a loosely defined grouping of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning individuals united by a common culture and social movements. These communities generally celebrate pride, diversity, individuality, and sexuality. LGBTQ activists and sociologists see LGBTQ community-building as a counterweight to heterosexism, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, sexualism, and conformist pressures that exist in the larger society. The term pride or sometimes gay pride expresses the LGBTQ community's identity and collective strength; pride parades provide both a prime example of the use and a demonstration of the general meaning of the term. The LGBTQ community is diverse in political affiliation. Not all people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender consider themselves part of the LGBTQ community.
Queer studies, sexual diversity studies, or LGBTQ studies is the study of topics relating to sexual orientation and gender identity usually focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender dysphoric, asexual, aromantic, queer, questioning, and intersex people and cultures.
A "friend of Dorothy" (FOD) is a euphemism for a gay man, first used in LGBT slang. Stating that, or asking if someone is a friend of Dorothy, is a furtive way of suggesting sexual orientation while avoiding hostility. The term was likely based on the character Dorothy Gale of the Oz series of novels, which have been interpreted as including much queer subtext. Actress Judy Garland, who portrayed Dorothy in the 1939 Wizard of Oz film, is considered a gay icon. Writer and critic Dorothy Parker is thought to be another potential origin of the term. The "friend of Dorothy" euphemism was commonly used throughout the 20th century, but its use has declined in recent decades as LGBT acceptance has advanced.
Founded in 1952, One Institute, is the oldest active LGBTQ+ organization in the United States, dedicated to telling LGBTQ+ history and stories through education, arts, and social justice programs. Since its inception, the organization has been headquartered in Los Angeles, California.
Sarah Miriam Schulman is an American novelist, playwright, nonfiction writer, screenwriter, gay activist, and AIDS historian. She holds an endowed chair in nonfiction at Northwestern University and is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities. She is a recipient of the Bill Whitehead Award and the Lambda Literary Award.
LGBT History Month is an annual month-long observance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history, and the history of the gay rights and related civil rights movements. It was founded in 1994 by Missouri high-school history teacher Rodney Wilson. LGBT History Month provides role models, builds community, and represents a civil rights statement about the contributions of the LGBTQ+ community. As of 2022, LGBT History Month is a month-long celebration that is specific to Australia, Canada, Cuba, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States.
NewFest: The New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival put on by The New Festival, Inc., is one of the most comprehensive forums of national and international LGBT film/video in the world.
David Ebershoff is an American writer, editor, and teacher. His debut novel, The Danish Girl, was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film of the same name in 2015, while his third novel, The 19th Wife, was adapted into a television movie of the same name in 2010.
Outfest is an LGBTQ-oriented nonprofit that produces two film festivals, operates a movie streaming platform, and runs educational services for filmmakers in Los Angeles. Outfest is one of the key partners, alongside the Frameline Film Festival, the New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival, and the Inside Out Film and Video Festival, in launching the North American Queer Festival Alliance, an initiative to further publicize and promote LGBT film.
LGBT representation in children's television is representation of LGBT topics, themes, and people in television programming meant for children. LGBT representation in children's programming was often uncommon to non-existent for much of television's history up to the 2010s, but has significantly increased since then.
At The Beach, Los Angeles (ATBLA) is the organization that promotes and administers the Los Angeles Black gay pride event that occurs every summer. At The Beach is an annual beach party/Pride celebration which exists as the focal point for the black gay pride events, is the largest black gay pride event on the West Coast.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer+(LGBTQ+)music is music that focuses on the experiences of gender and sexual minorities as a product of the broad gay liberation movement.
Jeanne Córdova was an American writer and supporter of the lesbian and gay rights movement, founder of The Lesbian Tide, and a founder of the West Coast LGBT movement. A former Catholic nun, Córdova was a second-wave feminist lesbian activist and self-described butch.
Malinda Lo is an American writer of young adult novels including Ash, Huntress, Adaptation, Inheritance,A Line in the Dark, and Last Night at the Telegraph Club. She also does research on diversity in young adult literature and publishing.
The African-American LGBT community, otherwise referred to as the Black American LGBT community, is part of the overall LGBTQ culture and overall African-American culture. The initialism LGBT stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.
The Cooper Do-nuts Riot was an alleged uprising in reaction to police harassment of LGBT people at a 24-hour donut cafe in Los Angeles in the 1960s. Whether the riot actually happened, the date, location and whether or not the cafe was a branch of the Cooper chain are all disputed, and there is a lack of contemporary documentary evidence, with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) stating that any records of such event would have been purged years ago.
Samantha Leigh Allen is an American journalist and author. Allen worked as a senior reporter for The Daily Beast and now works as Senior Culture Editor at Them. In 2019 she published the nonfiction book Real Queer America: LGBT Stories From Red States.
Eric Cervini is an American historian and author of LGBTQ politics and culture. His 2020 book, The Deviant's War: The Homosexual vs. The United States of America, was a New York Times Bestseller and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He also runs a queer history newsletter, Queer History 101, which focuses on sharing LGBTQ history.
Hugh Ryan is an American historian and non-fiction writer focusing on the LGBT history of New York City. He wrote The Women's House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison and When Brooklyn Was Queer.